Dick DeVos

Dick DeVos (Richard Marvin DeVos, Jr.) is the billionaire former president of Amway Corp. and its parent company Alticor Inc. In 2006 DeVos, a Repubican, lost a run for governor of Michigan, U.S. against Democratic incumbent Governor Jennifer Granholm by 42 percent to 56 percent. The Detroit News called it "a record-smashing challenge bankrolled by her multimillionaire opponent, Dick DeVos." He is a potential candidate to run again in 2010.

Involvement in politics
Dick DeVos is the husband of Betsy DeVos, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and the son of Amway Corp. co-founder Richard DeVos, former chair of the Republican National Committee.

Dick has been heavily involved in the privatization of public schools. People for the American Way writes, "Dick DeVos has used his family's fortune and status to create an intricate national network of non-profits, political action committees and federal groups known as 527's that effectively fund the political arm of the school voucher movement. As this profile details, DeVos money flows into the coffers of various ultra-conservative candidates, committees, and causes. Nowhere is the impact of the DeVos family fortune greater, though, than in the movement to privatize public education."

"Dick DeVos started working for his father’s company—the Amway Corporation—in 1974 and ten years later became vice president with responsibility for the company's operations in 19 countries. He founded the Winquest Group, a private investment company, in 1989. DeVos was elected to the Michigan State Board of Education in 1991 but only served two years of an eight-year term before stepping down to run the family business. He was president of Alticor Inc., the parent company of the Amway Corporation, for ten years before he retired in 2002. Since then, he has been devoted to privatizing public education and other right-wing causes."

"Their foundation, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, where Dick serves as vice-president, is one of the handful of foundations that together have financed much of the effort to promote the Religious Right's agenda across the country."

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Betsy DeVos
 * Richard DeVos